Thursday, 28 July 2011

lets start with some more pictures of the Prussians that I've been working my way through, I've 90% finished the dreadnought, just need to order some decals from Doms decals namely the German Maltese cross so that I can slap them on various bits and bobs...

but if they did a really big version for the airships then I'd be sorted but I'm going to try and not screw up the attempt at freehand so we'll see what happens on that one!

so after trying to get my grubby hands on some khador bits and having no joy what so ever I spotted this from privateer press...

which depending how you look at it could be a good thing with the amount of people getting into warmachine and hordes so in theory more people to play against, a better torney scene, increased profits for privateer enabling better casting/sculpting techniques for there models and expansion of ranges. But if your a lead/plastic resin mountain junkie then this is no good for you as availability of low priority models could be frustrating if your having to wait a while to get your hands on something, but that's the nature of the beast eh....

now normally I don't really give a toss about who's made what and all that mumbo jumbo, and I've only really looked at the "overview" as I've no experience in this level of management, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that the reduction in sales for the UK, US & Oz doesn't bode well,

I use my local area as an example,

I popped into my local GW to pick up some paint on a bank holiday and the shop was empty, one demo game going on at that back of the shop and that was it... I used to work for the "evil empire" back in the day when necromunda, epic and 40K were at the height of gaming experience. For the shop to be empty on a bank holiday never happened! no big game no painting clinic's??

Then I get an email from the manager of GW Leicester wanting to know if the Phat cats would be interested in taking part in a local torney sending one champion from each of the local clubs, so how that pans out should be interesting as we don't tend to play GW systems that much and this tells me that the new chap is attempting to bring the "old school" players back into the shop?

but when I popped into my local independent store that sells just about everything under the sun on a midweek evening and it was rammed!! you had 40K kill team, warmachine and some magic the gathering thingy (never understood it as where's the models??)

Personally I prefer to goto my independent as I don't get bugged by the sales staff , I can pick up just about what ever I want and hell even play with unpainted miniatures.

Are GW going the way of the dinosaur??

No chance they are that big that nothing can topple them from there position, but with gamers branching out and going "heretic" they need to look at the other gaming companies and learn from there successes..

Thursday, 21 July 2011

As he fancied a game of Dystopian Wars made by Spartan Games the same chaps who have done firestorm armada and uncharted seas, so as I know how the system works I decided to dive right in and pick up a fleet box, I was gonna pick up the brits but various people have threatened to pick up the Prussians but none did so I went for it,

after having a mooch about on the spartan games forum and looking at the various painted fleets I decided to basically paint them roughly as the box art as well as how this chap has done them....

then Pick out the metal bits with bolt gun & chaos black mixed together

then go back over the metal with just bolt gun, and snakebite leather for the wooden decking

highlight the decking with tausept ochre (stupid bloody name!)

Pick out the detail with Brassy Brass

Ink with Badab Black and your done! Now I might add some zigzag lines on the model but I'll do that at a later stage maybe!

So as I was doing the one model I did the usual "Anton" thing and did the whole lot in one fell swoop, I'm sure some of the chaps down the shop & club will be surprised or maybe not? but I picked these up at 8pm last night and by 2pn today they were done, and that included 6 hours with the Golden Child!

One of the smaller ships, you get 9 in the box

Large Ship, you get one in the box, the reason for the missing weapon system is that you can swap out one of the turrets for a special forcefield type thing, something that I'll suss out once I've played a game with them,

I also picked up one of the new capital ships and its huge compared to the others!

And a floating skyfortress airfield!

overall the models are pretty good with not a great deal of flash and not found any major miscasts so far, so doing better than GW's "finecast" LOL price wise the naval fleet is about £25 and the big ship & zeppelin was around the £12 mark so not a great deal if you consider the actual quality and the overall size,

So there you go nice and easy and you could easily do the same colour scheme for red scorpions for 40K, but I've never sussed out why there grey and not red?

I'm still working on the secrets of the third Reich stuff and "hopefully" I should have most of that done by the end of the month.

Friday, 15 July 2011

I've had a couple of weeks off work which has been nice so spending lots of time faffing about with the Golden Child, but whilst the pigmy was sleeping I did manage to get some more Khador winter guard done in the form of 2 mortars and 2 field guns,

Close up of the field gun, I have noticed that the molded khador symbol is on the opposite shoulder to the other winterguard models though? which is strange??

Mortar close up,

Overall not that hard to paint and was certainly alot easier than the normal winterguard guys, maybe I spent too long painting with the dip technique and speed of the results produce,

So next on the production line for the khador, shock troopers ready for spraying....

But these bad boys have been stripped using detol & swarfega (a degreasing agent that also leaves your hands feeling smooth and fresh!)

so the first model that I tried to strip....

After a bit of faffing about, and getting so cheap tooth brushes I managed to strip one back to this...

So whilst I'm doing that lot I'll also be working on my cutlass gang and now I've had a couple of games I'll more than likely post a review of the system and share some thoughts and feeling on putting together a starting gang, and I'll also explain at a later date with the crazy colour scheme that I've gone for!!

Also whilst on my way back from airsoft I popped into maelstrom games and picked up some secrets of the third Reich, I'd been tempted to pad out the Germans that I picked up years ago, but decided that I was going to go for the British as they appear to be the underdogs with the alternative history that has been wrote and there are some really cool unit rules as well as models.

now if this preacher does....

then I'm converting to god!! ;)

Leader of MI-13... more on this lot another time!

So after all that lot I'll be doing what is becoming a jack carpark.. I've picked up the conversion kit for black Ivan but just need a khador plastic jack to get him sorted,

On to the pledge....

So far its going quite well this month,

30 models bought and only going to pick up the khador jack and konvik joe so that should be it!

44 models painted so far I managed to boost the numbers with some epic that I blasted but all thats left for my epic is a reaver titan that I've managed to repair with some spare weapons, But the actual model count I think will be less than a 100 for this month unless I really shake a leg and get some hardcore painting in!!

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Well after the test piece and the new caster I've cracked on with some winter guard and a Spriggen, For some reason it was a bit of a chore to get the winter guard done.

Could it be the lack of alternative poses or that the celts that I'd done recently where so random I just painted what ever I wanted? With these being more uniform the grind of the production line did give me flash backs when I painted a guard army once!

The Spriggen I painted in parts so that I could get into the tight spots and make it look nice, but I'd forgotten how pants khador metal jacks are to put together! I could have done with a spot welder at some points! and the lance arm is slightly wobbly so I'm more than likely gonna have to pin that.

But at least it weighs enough to KO someone when they get on your tits and tell you how to play your army!

So the whole lot so far...

Max size infantry unit with officer and standard with 3 RPG'ers, just waiting for a bloke called Joe to turn up ;)

Close up of a normal chap, I wanted to keep the colours fairly earthy and not have that many "flashy" parts to represent the conscript look, Think of enemy at the gates where they get one rifle between two!

The other side...

The standard, I wasn't too sure about the red, but once it was done it stood out like a beacon for the army to rally around... Or for the enemy to aim at!

So the Spriggen, I've not touched the Khador since Mk1 and even then it was only once in a while thanks to a regular drubbin from a menoth player, So with all the Khador bits and bobs its like learning them all over again!

I wanted to keep the scheme fairly basic but the camera doesn't pick up the highlighting well,

I tried a normal light to show the underside as it was quite dark but now it looks like its walking towards flames! would make a great project for directional lighting (but I'm way too lazy for that!)

The other side..

So the 144th Assault Company is coming along nicely and eventually I'll be aiming for a 50 point list that I can use at the nationals next year so that'll involve 3 casters and plenty of play testing!